Poster Summaries II. Human Development: Intersections with Psychoanalytic Perspectives: Do Mothers of Secure Infants Speak Differently than Mothers of Avoidant Infants in Natural Conversations? An Interpersonal Exploration of Language Differences

This exploratory study looks at language differences between seven mothers of secure infants and seven mothers of avoidant infants when the infants are twelve months old. Data from a larger study of infant communication (Jaffe et al. 2001) are used to group mothers according to their infant's attachment classification as measured using the Ainsworth Strange Situation (Ainsworth et al. 1978). Unstructured ten-to-twelve-minute conversations between mothers and the same interviewers (“strangers”) are paired across secure and avoidant groups. The mothers' and strangers' language style are measured using the latest version of the computerized Discourse Attributes Analysis Program (DAAP) language processor (Bucci and Maskit 2005).

Using the Adult Attachment Interview (Main 1985) and applying Bucci's measure of Referential Activity (RA), Appelman (2000) suggests that the “internal movement of transformation between nonverbal experience and word parallels the external movement of transformation between infant and mother” (p. 6). The current study follows Appelman's in attempting to link mother-infant attachment to Bucci's theory and measures of RA but is unique in several other ways.

1. We examine differences in mothers' language style in groups defined only by their infants' attachment classification.

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   Differences between secure and avoidant groups will reflect some mediating features in mothers that link their use of language to their infant's attachment style in ways not measured by the Adult Attachment Interview.

2. Conversations in this study are more naturalistic than those used in measures such as the Adult Attachment Interview. Each mother participates in an unstructured conversation after having the experience of playing with her infant and watching others play with her infant in the laboratory environment. As described below, mothers are free to talk about anything in these conversations.

3. This study takes into account the interpersonal nature of communication and examines